Innovating decarbonisation with collaboration key to progress

The energy landscape today is changing at a pace not witnessed before, driven by geopolitics, price volatility, complex supply chains, and reliance on hydrocarbons. This has exacerbated the energy trilemma as the balance between security, affordability, and sustainability in how we access and use energy in our daily lives has dramatically changed. Amid a backdrop of increasing environmental disasters, radical new measures must be implemented. But history has shown that great disruptions can accelerate innovation and enhance the pace of solution seeking.

How can we reshape the priorities and lead the transformation to still achieve our net-zero ambitions? Global energy events like ADIPEC provide a vital forum for industry and government leaders to tackle the topics of energy security, sustainability, and energy affordability. With decarbonisation as a core topic, this year’s ADIPEC will be a particularly important event, providing an opportunity for the industry to gather and direct the conversations that will occur just days later at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, in Egypt.

Decarbonisation progress will require more than finding one single technological breakthrough. Solving the energy trilemma and ensuring energy systems are affordable, reliable, and sustainable, requires a wide range of different solutions, maybe some that don’t even exist yet. According to IEA, 45% of all emissions savings in 2050 will come from technologies that have not yet reached the market. Innovation paves the path for scaling up those opportunities, but the tempo relies on how well we collaborate on finding new ways together with other stakeholders. No individual company, single scientist, or policy maker has all the answers, but working together can help us create cutting-edge ideas and ensure our innovation cycles become shorter and technology maturity levels higher. Successful innovations are based on partnerships, they flourish in the exchange between capable and diverse sets of experts.

Global energy events like ADIPEC provide a vital forum for industry and government leaders to tackle the topics of energy security, sustainability, and energy affordability. With decarbonisation as a core topic, this year’s ADIPEC will be a particularly important event, providing an opportunity for the industry to gather and direct the conversations that will occur just days later at COP27

Moreover, there are many opportunities currently, especially when looking at the developments in the energy sector, where we can and need to use this potential. One of the great examples on how to grow the knowledge ecosystem is to co-create and incubate emerging technologies with partners in Innovation Centres, like the recently opened Middle East Innovation Centre in Abu Dhabi – a collaboration between ADIO and Siemens Energy. In addition to Abu Dhabi there are three other global innovation hubs that Siemens Energy has created, with the other locations in Orlando in the United States, Shenzhen in China and Berlin in Germany.

These hubs are designed to bring customers, industrial partners, and academia together. All working towards the same goal - developing sustainable energy solutions jointly. Another notable example of an effective way of collaboration in the energy industry is exchanging knowledge between companies with a strong legacy in the field of decarbonisation as well as emerging start-ups developing disruptive and innovative solutions. With that purpose, Siemens Energy is partnering up with Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem to support tech startups and directly address global climate change and drive investments to clean energy projects. Exchanges like this are mutually beneficial, leveraging experience, knowledge, technological developments, market access and financing.

The energy landscape today is changing at a pace not witnessed before, driven by geopolitics, price volatility, complex supply chains, and reliance on hydrocarbons

Nonetheless, some challenges are more complex than others, such as reducing emissions in the industrial sector, one that is responsible for around 30% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and can’t be tackled without setting long-term partnerships. This means commitment beyond classical customer-supplier relations, one that ties organisations together to work strategically and united towards the same goal. Having signed the Alliance for Industry Decarbonisation with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and 13 companies across all industry sectors, we are working together on developing the use of green hydrogen and promoting more sustainable industrial processes. Through partnerships and alliances, we can magnify our impact and create a better tomorrow, something that we all strive for.